The present disclosure relates generally to texture within video, i.e., visual texture. As used herein, the term “texture” may refer to a digital image or a sequence of digital images that comprises repeated elements. These repeated elements may create the illusion of a three-dimensional textured surface, i.e., the appearance of a textured surface to the eye.
More specifically, the present disclosure relates to the problem of texture synthesis for video coding. The fundamental goal of texture synthesis is to synthesize an image sequence that is perceptually identical (or similar) to an original image sequence. However, the pixel values of the synthesized sequence are allowed to be significantly different than the pixel values in the original sequence. This differs from a traditional coding approach, where we seek to approximate the original pixel values as closely as possible.
Texture synthesis is best motivated for image sequences that are somewhat random. For example, the movement of water, grass and trees are good candidates for texture synthesis.
Texture synthesis is used in many fields, including digital image editing, three-dimensional computer graphics, post-production of films, etc. Texture synthesis can be used to fill in holes in images, create large non-repetitive background images, expand small pictures, and so forth.